Wheel of Fate News

Greetings followers of fate!
The wheel continues to spin restlessly as it continues to seek a fate where the hands of the fateless god can no longer reach the World of Providence. These woven threads of fate have now intertwined Cancer’s reign into Leo’s realm!

Experience both depth and power as this turning of the wheel sets the world aflame with the powerful scorching sun of Leo! This powerful update will be combining elements of both the Cancer 1.2.0 and Leo 1.3.0 update and as with the season of Cancer, we value depth… high ‘depth’-finition graphics!

We primarily focused on improving the graphics of the game and we have now implemented the talking A.I! Not to say that this is the only thing we’ve been working on! Take a look at the features and highlights that the energies of Cancer and Leo brings for Wheel of Fate!

Town updates

• Implemented new building models
  
• Changed upgrades for town
  
• Changed signs for buildings
  
• Changed lantern positions and lighting
  
• Updated navmesh, the walkable ground in town
  
• Updated town decorations
  
• Improved textures and graphics
  
• Adjusted entrances for the tavern
  
• Adjusted spacing of furniture
  
• Removed Lumber Mill as a placeable building
  
• Changed stores to have interactable tables out front
  

Sewer updates

• Shrunk the size of the sewer significantly
  
• Fixed various collision issues
  

A.I. updates

• Artificial intelligence algorithms updated
  
• Implemented talking A.I.
  
• Wheel of Fate provides unique commentary and dialogue based on game choices and events.
  
• Adjusted player collision points with Wheel of Fate
  

Interface updates

• All fonts changed in user interface
  
• Adjusted text in skills menu
  
• Cleaned up inventory menu
  
• Cleaned up skills menu
  
• Adding informational prompts for when player cannot spin wheel
  
• Adjusted dialogue scene text and box texts
  
• Added post-processing effects for Wheel of Fate dialogue and scenes
  
• Cleaned up load screen performance
  
• Adjusted sound and music transitions
  
• Cleaned up transitions between scenes and game modes
  
• Added delete file confirmation prompt
  

Battle updates

• Adjusted attack and ability names displayed in combat
  
• Enemy health rings are now shown for ally members as well
  
• Added feature to turn on/off active-response system. It will not be possible to miss AR when the system is turned off but it will still run.
  
• Added pause menu for combat
  
• Adjusted skill points required for leveling skills
  
• Adjusted combo attack animations to end after the enemy is defeated
  
• Cleaned up camera movement
  
• Cleaned up battle animations
  
• Character creation updates
  
• Added new hair styles
  
• Updated character rotation feature
  
• Added character face zoom
  

Bug fixes

• Adjusted NPC animations and pathing
  
• Fixed character pathing and collision points for terrain and buildings
  
• Fixed collision issues with character, NPCs, enemies and items
  
• Fixed item behavior bugs in inventory interactions
  
• Fixed spawn points
  
• Fixed overlapping texts
  
• Fixed chests spawning with only gold and no items
  
• Fixed red quest mark in sewers
  
• Fixed incorrect skill casting, targeting, and critical hits
  
• Fixed negative damage attacks
  
• Fixed health and healing effects of items
  
• Fixed weather in buildings bug
  
• Fixed various navmesh issues
  
• Fixed various z-fighting issues
  
• Fixed inventory character display issues
  
• Moved NPC barks to UI layer so that the environment doesn’t interfere
  
• Various controller updates
  
• Loading an autosave at the game’s beginning no longer forces the player to watch the opening again
  
• Player no longer moves faster diagonally
  
• Combat options can now be selected with the mouse
  
• Fixed town management double cursor bug
  
• Various quest journal fixes
  
• Fixed townsfolk duplicating and reusing IDs
  

As we are now nearing the official release of Wheel of Fate, we plan to continue following up with the community, reviews and feedback we receive. We want this game to be as dynamic and immersive as possible for all of you. Thank you for your continued support and we hope you enjoy this latest update!

Cheers!

UDX Team

Hey Everybody!
Did you find yourself shoveling much snow on the first day of November? If the cold weather isn’t treating you right then, feel free to huddle up inside and join us in the charity streaming marathon for Toys for Tots, 12 Days of Indie!

We are so excited to give back to the community as a sponsor for the 12 Days of Indie charity event this year!

12 Days of Indie is a 12 day 24-hour charity marathon focused on raising money for Toys for Tots. The event was started back in 2013, and has been successful every year, bringing in as much as $27,000 USD in their most successful year!

It starts on November 4th at Midnight EST, and ends on November 15th at Midnight EST. We will be kicking it off with a pre-show between 8:00 PM and 11:59 PM on November 3rd! BlindPCGuy will be streaming Wheel of Fate on November 9th @2:00AM - 4:00AM EST!

Check out the charity stream LIVE at https://www.twitch.tv/indie !

If you’re interested in collaborating with Wheel of Fate or streaming our game then please let us know by emailing us at [email protected] or messaging us on our social media @WheelofFateGame !

Cheers!

UDX Team

Salutations everyone!
Good news! As most of you know from our Development roadmap, we have the Cancer 1.2.0 update coming up. However, due to the hardworking game development team we'll be releasing the Cancer and Leo update in a combined bulk Leo 1.3.0 update! This update is currently in testing!

In this game development highlight, we wanted to showcase the Wheel of Fate. More specifically, the A.I. technology that it utilizes to create and change the World of Providence that your avatar of fate must survive in.
Without further ado, here’s a basic explanation on how the A.I. technology in Wheel of Fate works!



Essentially, the A.I. in Wheel of Fate determines what content to deliver based on the behaviour it ‘learns’ when observing the player.

1. The cycle starts when the player makes a choice which is observed and recorded by the A.I.
   
2. The choices the player makes will then update the adaptability matrix, which is the matrix of choices that adjusts the "chance" of something happening. Almost like a decision matrix.
   
3. The matrix alters the probability of obtaining a certain outcome on the next fate spin. This altered probability assigns a weighted connection.
   
4. The altered probability is fed into the neural nets of the AI to process. Neural nets are basically the A.I.’s brain which operates similarly to the human brain. They allow the A.I. to solve problems or make decisions as well as improve by learning. The nets are layered to act as filters for information and utilize weighted connections to determine an output, the content.
   
5. The A.I. chooses the appropriate content to deliver based on the information available and stored in its neural nets. Content can span from quests, gear, dungeons, monsters and many more game features.
   
6. The game changes based on the content chosen by the A.I.
   
7. Then the cycle repeats itself. The more you play, the more the AI learns about you and continually adapts the game experience.
   

We hope you enjoyed our brief explanation on the inner workings of Wheel of Fate’s AI technology. In the meantime, get excited for our upcoming update where we will be implementing the talking A.I. and new building graphics!
Cheers!

UDX Team

Hiya Fateful Fellows!
With Halloween just around the corner, we decided to focus this game design highlight on the monsters featured in Wheel of Fate!
Here’s an in depth look at how we planned and designed some of the many dungeon dwellers that you find in the World of Providence! Please note that the Overlord, Otto and Towenn will be excluded in our dungeon monster discussion since some questions would be too unbalanced if they were included.


What’s your favourite dungeon monster from Wheel of Fate?
This was a difficult one to choose because I really wanted to say either the Overlord, Otto or Towenn as my favourites… In regards to the looks of the monster, I have to say the goblins or spiders because their elemental skins look great! Although, another personal favourite are the fateless monsters. They look amazing without their armor because you can see more details of the ‘fateless’ skin. Overall, I have to list the goblins as my favourite.

How did you decide which monsters to include in Wheel of Fate?
This was a collaborative process with the art team and game dev team. Basically, we took a list of about 100 monsters that we were considering to include into the game. Sort of like a giant brainstorming process. Based on team preferences, we chose 40 monsters to include. We wanted to ensure that there was both a certain range of monster types but also a level of design quality so 40 monsters was an optimal number.

Are there any monsters that you were unable to implement? Why?
‘Tree guys’ like the ones from Lord of the Rings. We wanted to implement a tree type monster since the concept art was incredible and well done! Unfortunately, the model didn’t meet our expectations and we had a lot of difficulties trying to make the different elemental skins for this monster. How do you make an ‘air’ looking tree?

What was the design process for each monster?
The artwork and graphics were left to the art team. Based on the choice of 40 monsters from the list, the art term would design them, make the base models then modified for elemental skins.
In regards to the monsters’ attack arsenal, the game design team defined a set of attacks all monsters would have and collaborated with the art team to ensure the model design was logical to the animation and attack.
Some attacks had to be changed because they didn’t make sense. For example, the animation would be too flashy or would look weird with the type of weapon. Like a triple jump somersault air flip with a giant axe for one whack at the opponent.

I understand that the monsters change with each spin of the wheel. Were there any monsters that you had difficulty adjusting to their different elemental skins? Why?
Yes, there was one monster that we had immense difficulty creating elemental skins for. As mentioned earlier, the tree guys.
For the implemented monsters, no. Most of the monsters that were implemented were chosen based on design and in game model prototypes which include their elemental skins, so if their elemental skins didn’t look good then they were not chosen.

Which monster did you dislike fighting the most?
100% that would be the Ogres. Before an update, they would take up to 30 minutes to beat because they had incredible regeneration abilities and were heavy hitting. The regeneration was a % based health regeneration. However, when they already have a lot of health, it would result in the ogre basically regenerating almost all of your attack damage. We decided to fix this.

Did you draw inspiration from anywhere when designing the monsters? If so, where?
Yes, a lot of our inspiration for the list of monsters came from the classic medieval fantasy genre as well as games like World of Warcraft and DnD.

Out of the existing monsters, which one do you feel was unsatisfactory that you would want to take an revise or improve upon?
Honestly, I love the dragon model but I also feel the most unsatisfactory about it. The model outside of the game looks great but it doesn’t look as nice in the game battle scenes. For instance, the animations would seem ‘off’ during attacks or the textures and face looked underwhelming from the battle scene angle.

Aside from the Overlord, which monster would win in a battle royale amongst the monsters in the dungeons?
In my opinion, I think the dragon would most likely win in a battle royale. It hits the hardest out of all of the dungeon monsters so I feel that would win over endless snake spawns or high healing ogres.

Personally, what monster do you find the most terrifying?
Personally, I guess I would say ghosts are the most terrifying, so the Liches in Wheel of Fate. Realistically, I think the Ratmen would be the most terrifying of a monster to exist from our game.


Got any more questions for us regarding the game design for Wheel of Fate? Feel free to post in the forums or comment on this blog post and we’ll be happy to answer your questions!
We’re also active daily on our official discord so come join us for a chat!
Cheers!

UDX Team

Hi Everyone!
As promised in our previous blog post, we will be hosting another exciting contest for this month. For October, we will be giving away one Wheel of Fate hoodie in a twitter costume raffle! Check out the instructions below on how to enter!

1. Visit the live contest tweet.
   
2. Follow the @WheelofFateGame twitter account
   
3. Retweet the contest tweet
   
4. Comment a PHOTO of your halloween costume to enter
   

Rules:

• You must follow, retweet AND comment a photo of your costume.
  
• The costume must be appropriate - no offensive, NSFW, political, racist or discriminatory costumes will be entered into the raffle.
  
• You are allowed to post a costume from any point in time. It does not have to be from this year and it does not have to be a Halloween costume. However, it must still be a photo of you wearing the costume.
  
• You do not have to show your identity in the costume so long the costume is visible in the photo.
  

Our October Costume Raffle will end on Friday, October 30th @12:00PM EST and the winner will be announced the same day. Best of luck on your costume plans this year and we’re looking forward to your contest submissions!

Cheers!
UDX Team